marianne.masculino

BlogHer 2008

marianne — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:58:33 +0000

So, I’ll be speaking at BlogHer this year in San Francisco. I’ll be joining Angie Byron of Drupal to discuss ways that you can participate and contribute to open source projects like WordPress and Drupal.

What are some topics you’d like to hear about in the panel?

April 3, 2008 is “Good People Day”

marianne — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:40:34 +0000

Just a few days ago Gary Vaynerchuk reached out and sent the community a mission. A mission of GOOD! This day is sort of a “pay it forward” idea, where we all embrace the goodness that surrounds us and the people perpetrating that awesomeness. Following the twitters that were being sent out throughout the day gave me(as well as others, I’m sure) that warm & fuzzy feeling. It was nice to hear all the great things the community was saying about each other and the love being felt through the intertubes. I didn’t twitter anything or anyone in particular, except to graciously give virtual hugs and love to my friends who mentioned me as part of their #GPD08 tweets.

I wanted to take the time to gather my thoughts to talk about the truly good people who have impacted my life and basically helped me(whether they know it or not) get to where I am today.

My family - duh. They’ve taught me love, understanding, and discipline in all aspects of life. They done real good with their little girl

The Mighty Centaurs crew - My group of friends who I have known the longest. We have each other’s backs and lean on one another for everything and anything. Words cannot describe how much I love them. We are the greatest middle school gym class evar!

Ayo Babalola aka AirNigeria - Ayo’s geeked out with me, cried with me and been basically stupid with me for some years now. I pretty much talk to him everyday and wouldn’t know what it would be like if I didn’t. He just gets me.

My girls - One half of the Mighty Centaurs crew. These are the women you want on your side and they will be forever. I love you, biznatches!!

Kelsey Ruger aka TheMoleskin - Kelsey is one of the greatest mentors and friends you could ever meet. He was a huge part of why I am here in San Francisco. He’s the kind of leader who sees your strengths and lets you run with it. He always pushed me to be better, do more and just kick-ass. Seriously, one of the baddest mofos you’ll ever run into.

Erica O’Grady - Erica is this ball of energy and love — you can’t help but be happy when you’re around her. She is utterly gifted and knows all her bizness. She’s one of my biggest cheerleaders and in large part to her, I’m an Automattician (Thank, Matt!!) Love you, Erica!

photo credit: Kelsey Ruger

Cindy Li - My dear Cindy… she was one of the first people that called me when I moved to San Fran. I was intro’d to her via email by Kelsey. I can say she is my closest and dearest friend here. She’s known to go above and beyond for others. She definitely has for me. The goodness that emanates from her is contagious and if you ever see us around, we’re almost always giggling while probably eating ice cream or cupcakes!

photo credit: Cindy Li

There is obviously a plethora of people I want to write more about who are good and have been good to me. If you read this and I know you, you’re definitely on that list of good people. I love you all and appreciate having you in my life. I am looking forward to spending more time with you in the future.

Thanks, @garyvee for this awesome idea. You’ve done a ton of good today

And with that, I’ll leave you with this:

Forthcoming posts

marianne — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 01:28:39 +0000

I’ve got a ton of stuff to write up on for the past few weeks. Namely the conferences/events I’ve gotten a chance to attend. Look forward to posts about:

Got Social Media? Conference - Houston, TX
BarCampTexas -Bryan, TX
Bay Area Geek Girl Dinner #1 - Mountain View, CA
Customer Service is the New Marketing Summit -San Francisco, CA

Oh, and my new job as a happiness engineer here

The Requisite 2007 Review

marianne — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:57:53 +0000

Well, here we are…the last hours of 2007. It’s been a wicked, crazy year and I loved every minute of it(mostly). Despite the personal ups-and-downs, 2007 treated me pretty well. The biggest item was my move to San Francisco. I’m loving my new home and discovering new places, events, and people of course. I truly miss my Houston folk, because without them in my life it would’ve taken me much longer to get to where I am now(if ever). I’m looking forward to taking on 2008 and hopefully achieving a few (realistic) goals through the new year.

Without further ado…

Kelsey has told me time and time again, I need to blog more. Yes, I will try. What to write about? Who knows?
Learn and develop something in some sort of programming language. I will most likely tackle Django first.
Travel more. I love airports, flying and packing. I should do it more often.
To go along with #3, I plan to participate in more Startup Weekends. They are addictive.
Take more photos and learn more about photography
Bust out my wacom and improve my drawring skills

Here are a few highlights of my 2007

Ayo, Rene and I talking on our shoes.

Sushi that we made on our Sushi Night

My lucky slot machine at the Luxor. I won 3x as much as I brought that weekend.

At the KA Theater

photo courtesy of Paul Stamatiou’s Flickrstream

Cheering on the Houston Rockets

Stormtrooper <3 at Fisherman’s Wharf

Erica O’Grady and I shutting down Barcamp Houston

The one and only Kelsey Ruger Barcamp Houston

My last day at Pop Labs

Katelyn and I at my Farewell Dinner

One of my fave shots from Startup Weekend SF: Tyler Willis and Andrew Hyde cleaning up

Sunset at Startup Weekend Los Angeles. birdie!

Back home with the family for the holidays
Have yet to upload the rest of 2007, but you may view more in my Flickrstream

See you in ‘08!!

A new beginning…

marianne — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 04:37:58 +0000

I’m moving to San Francisco finally and starting a new chapter in my life in the next few weeks. I have been wanting this for a very long time. When I returned home from my SF vacation this summer, I just motivated myself to go back for good. I worked extra hours in the office, at home, & on weekends to learn new stuff, make myself to a smidge of awesome and did some job-hunting. I started in mid-July and by the beginning of August, I started getting a few responses and interviews. I found an awesome job with a global travel marketing start-up firm and I’m in the midst of apartment/house hunting. Leaving my family, friends and job is bittersweet, but it’s very exciting.

I’ll be documenting the next few weeks/months with tweets on Twitter and save the longer blog entries for when I’m settled into the new life.

First mobile post

marianne — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 03:55:26 +0000

Posted by mobile phone:
Top 10 Sites I Visit while on my Tmobile Dash

1. Twitter/m.twitter.com
2. Gmail
3. Google Reader (google.com/reader/m)
4. Google Calendar (calendar.google.com)
5. Backpack Mobile (your backpack url with /mob at the end of address)
6. Flickr Mobile (m.flickr.com)
7. Facebook Mobile (m.facebook.com)
8. Pownce
9. my own site/blog
10. Fantasy Hip-Hop League

What & how do you surf when you’re mobile (waiting in line, sitting on the bus/train, in traffic, etc…)

On My Plate…

marianne — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:18:50 +0000

The next few months will be a busy one for me both personally and professionally.

- My 10-year high school reunion is coming up next week. Has it really been that long?

- I’m in planning stages for our first Hackday (maybe more of a Mashpit) for Pop Labs

- Attending my first BarCampHouston. I have the honor to help coordinate/organize the event as well.

- Learning myself on new things I’m really excited about.

- Improving current skills to coincide with the new ish I’m learning.

- Our Annual Boat Party in Austin for Labor Day

- AIR Houston 2007 team captain for one of 2 teams from Pop Labs

- I’ve even signed up to be part of the first StartUpWeekend-Houston

There’s more in between, but those are some of the major ones coming up for me in the next 3 monthss. It’s all a little scary, but I say bring it on.

I just need to leap

marianne — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 20:21:48 +0000

“I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change.

I have gone ahead despite the pounding in my heart that says: turn back.”
-Erica Jong

Killer Sammiches!

marianne — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 04:33:21 +0000

I love this video: TV on the Radio: Me-I

This is for my buddy, Phil. Happy Friday:-)

The Voice Inside

marianne — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 05:52:25 +0000

I found myself watching American Inventor this evening mainly b/c the auditions were in Houston(and I was waiting for Traveler to come on). Anyway, I was blown away by one young man, Christopher Khanoyan, who is deaf. He came up with an invention idea for “The Voice Inside” which is portable voice-to-text and text-to-voice device that uses voice recognition software built into a phone/pda (sort of looked like a Sidekick or an MDA in the drawings) to facilitate a conversation between a deaf person and a hearing person.

Sorry for the blurriness of the video. I couldn’t find any online sources for video at the moment, so I did it ghetto-fab style and recorded the video on my camera.

It was really inspirational and probably one of the best things I saw on the show thus far. Don’t read further if you haven’t seen the episode yet

[Show Spoiler]

Chris’ invention was chosen as one of Houston’s finalists, but unfortunately did not win the $50,000 and chance to create a prototype for the finals. He was told it was a great invention, but some judges felt that $50K might not be enough to produce a fully working prototype or that it was not as mass-marketable. You know who did win? “The Wrapaway” - A dispenser for food wraps such as plastic wrap, aluminum foil, that is built in a drawer/compartment to be attached to the underside of your cabinets. Cool idea, but not as innovative or life-changing as “The Voice Inside” I really hope that Chris gets a chance for his invention to be funded and developed. I really do think it can be a revolutionary change for the hearing-impaired community.